


A Thousand Ways to be Lonely

by Amazing_E_ko



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, prompted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 02:17:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amazing_E_ko/pseuds/Amazing_E_ko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat is making a list...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand Ways to be Lonely

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt Reverse-Mermaid sent me, which I neglected until now.
> 
> This is probably the least "Homestucky" of my fics, because the tone of Homestuck doesn't mesh that well with h/c. I make no claims that this fic will be in character or logical. It is as self-indulgent as everything else I have written for this pairing. That said, have fun.

There are a thousand ways to be lonely, and Karkat Vantas is making a list of all of them. There is the loneliness of being alone, of course, of sitting in a room by yourself and letting it fill up with the noise that silence makes. But there are other kinds, involving people, and they are worse.   
There's the loneliness of missing your dead friends, of wanting to speak to them when they are gone. Karkat has found himself several times turning to someone who wasn't there, or opening a log on Trollian and clicking on a coloured icon before he knew what he was doing, and then staring at the space where something precious used to be. He misses them all, now, even the ones he hated. And though he sees them in the dream bubbles, it's not the same. Something tangible is gone. The people in the dream bubbles are frozen. They will never age, never change. He is leaving them behind day by day.  
There is the loneliness of the friends who remain alive, who change in unexpected and strange ways. Karkat sees Gamzee less and less. The moiralliegence he thought was so solid hasn't stopped them from drifting apart. When they do meet, the words stick in Karkat's throat.  
There is the loneliness of watching your friends fall in love, watching them turn to other people and forget you. Karkat can make all the snarky jokes in the world about how irritating he finds Dave and Terezi, and yeah the jokes are pretty damn funny if he does say so himself, but that doesn't fix the way they shut him out. Even Kanaya, always the most open and generous of the trolls, is increasingly abstracted in his company, her literal and figurative gaze always trained on Rose.  
There is the loneliness of inaction, when you do nothing for so long that you begin to forget what you're capable of. Karkat jumped at Meenah's offer for more than one reason. If he goes with her, maybe he will remember the person he used to think he was, the awesome and brave leader who won the game for everyone. Maybe that conception of himself won't seem like such a futile sham.  
Above all, there is the loneliness of waiting, waiting for people you can't even be sure are thinking of you. In Karkat's mind the ship bearing John and Jade on their separate journey has become a kind of sanctuary. In its imagined golden walls he has set all the hopes and dreams the meteor cannot bear, and he waits for them to come back to him in a stew of tension and excitement.  
As the last month begins to wind down Karkat finds himself physically affected by his nerves. He goes through the motions day by day, forgetting to eat sometimes, picking up books and looking at the words without taking them in. He falls into his old habits of sleeping as little as possible, and his eyes become shadowed and dark again. Kanaya expresses her concern, but he shrugs her off, and she doesn't pursue it. She looks at him with an odd, unreadable expression and turns away.

They are all standing on the deck, looking up into the stars of the new session. There is a moment of expectant silence, and then just as Karkat is about to throw Rose's abilities into question, the ship appears, shining like a tiny sun, and three figures descend from its prow.  
John is the fastest, swooping down and bestowing hugs and handshakes liberally. Karkat is picked up and squeezed before he can make the slightest objection, and by the time he has collected the most righteously insulting words in his vocabulary John is gone again.  
Davesprite is slower, flapping his wings lazily. He waves to the group, but his real interest is in actual Dave and Terezi, and Karkat is fine with that. Fewer Striders talking to him is always a good thing.  
At last Jade comes down. She had stayed with the ship to do... something, and when she does arrive there's no floating, just a crackle of green lightning and then a girl, standing in the middle of the group. She's taller than she was three years ago. She has a good four inches on Rose, though she hasn't filled out to the same degree. She's still all skinny and gangly, and her ears and teeth still stick out, and the freckles splashed liberally across her dark skin are no less obvious for having been away from a real sun for so long. She is completely beautiful and she teaches Karkat a new form of loneliness right there and then, because there is so much he wants to do and say, and he has no space for any of it.  
Jade is a hugger, too, and she does a loop, stopping for a moment with everyone. She grins at Rose and Kanaya, and the three stand together with the attitude of people bursting full of things to say. She and Terezi shake hands, curious and cautious and then Jade ruins the mood by laughing and ducking in for a quick squeeze. Dave complains at her in his low, laconic voice, amused and impatient, and she hugs him at once, patting his back where she pierced him with bullets, three years earlier.  
Karkat can't stop watching her. He wonders how obvious he's being, knows in his stomach that it's very, and can't stop. If the fate of the universe depended on him taking his eyes off her, he would let it burn.  
When she finally gets to him, it's almost a surprise. He actually misses the first thing she says, and she has to say it again, and her eyes are serious and wide behind her thick lenses.  
"It's good to see you. You look," she stops, and swallows, and shrugs. "You're shorter than I thought you'd be." She laughs and slides her arms around his ribs before he can snarl at her, and when she lets him go he feels bereft. In the end it's just another way to be lonely.

They all head below for a meal, laid on by Rose and Kanaya and as lavishly excessive as they can make it. Human and Troll delicacies sit side by side, lit by the flickering light of what feels like a thousand candles. Jade sits as one end of the table, John at the other, and everyone else in between.  
The atmosphere is merry, full of laughter and stories. They haven't won, there's a great deal left to do, but just for tonight they are all determined to give themselves the space to breathe. Karkat wants to join in, wants to tell them how silly everything has been, and how terrible the ancestors are and how annoying the dream bubbles can get, but he finds himself staying silent, watching from the outside, unable to shake the shadows from his shoulders. Even with Jade here, really here, he is no better than he was before, and that is unbearable knowledge.  
He leaves early, with the dessert half-eaten on his plate. He hopes Jade will call out to him, but she is laughing at Dave, and he doesn't think she even sees him go.  
He returns to his block, hunches up on his bed and sulks. There’s a book on his bedside table, but he ignores it. He couldn't concentrate, not right now. He stares at the wall and tries to escape from his own head, with no success. Little by little he drifts off to sleep.

Karkat awakens to a flash of green lightning. His block is dark, but the lights flicker on in reaction to movement, and when his eyes have adjusted he finds Jade sitting at the end of his bed.  
"I knocked, but you weren't answering."  
"Jegus Harley, have you ever fucking heard of common decency? I mean I know you were raised on an island with only a fucking dog to teach you manners, but has the concept of basic politeness completely passed you by?"  
Jade bites the inside of her cheek, and Karkat knows that he's making her angry. Perversely, this pleases him. If he can't be happy, why should she? But Jade doesn't rise to the bait. She takes a deep breath and speaks again.  
"Are you mad at me?"  
"What the bugfuck, Harley? What gave you that idea?"  
She doesn't look at him, fiddling with the edge of her tunic.  
"You've looked down all day. And you didn't really talk. And you left early. I don't know. I guess I was expecting-" She stops herself again, and makes a conscious effort to move her hands away from her tunic, laying them flat in her lap. She still won't look at him, though, and the space between them is huge and uncrossable.  
Karkat doesn't know what to say. He is caught between fear and a terrible hope. Fear wins.  
"I didn't think I'd be missed. You all looked like you were having fun. No need for me."  
Jade stiffens, her shoulders going in and up. But her voice, when she speaks, is mild.  
"What do you mean, no need for you?"  
"Jegus Harley, how stupid are you? I mean nobody there needed me. Nobody on this meteor has needed me for three years, that's not about to fucking change."  
Jade's shoulders get even tighter, and he sees her cheeks suck in again, and he prepares for her to tell him what lowly scum he is, because at this point he's running high on the fumes of despair.  
"Do you really think that?" Her voice brings him back down. It's so quiet, and so sad. He wants to see her face, but he can't, and he feels like any movement might shatter this moment forever. "Do you really think that no one here needs you? I'm here. I need you. Isn't that enough?"  
"What the fuck do you need me for?" The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. Jade flinches. He realises that her hands are twitching in her lap, tiny spasms every couple of seconds. Her posture is incredibly stiff and uncomfortable.  
"I grew up all on my own, Karkat. When I met Dave, in the game, that was the first time I had seen another human since I was eight. You have no idea how happy it made me. And then I killed him. Even if he didn't die, it was my fault. And you talked me down, remember? I was freaking out and you made it better. And here's the thing. Even if you were an asshole and a bully, you were also one of the few constant things in my life. I'm not saying getting trolled by you was fun, but it was reliable contact. And then I got on that ship and I didn't hear from you for three years. It took me a while to realise what I was missing, but I did. I really missed you."  
Karkat blinks at her. He wants so much to reach out and touch her, but he can't, he can't, and it's the loneliest he's ever felt.  
"But you have everyone else."  
For the first time, Jade looks at him. Her expression is complicated, her wide mouth twisted and her eyes tilted down at the corners and her lashes wet and gleaming. All of this is overlaid with very obvious annoyance.  
"Are you going to fight me every step of the way, Karkat? It's not the same, and you know it."  
He can't help it - he smiles, and it sets him free.  
"Yeah, I know. I'm just making a total ass of myself, like usual."  
Jade giggles and hiccups, and Karkat's smile spreads out. He takes her hand.  
"Missed you too," he says, at last. Jade's mouth clamps down and she nods, unable to speak, and then she throws herself at him. His head hits his pillow as her arms snake around his waist, and she buries her face in his chest, the top of her head under his chin. He breathes in the scent of her hair.  
They stay like that for a long time, not even really cuddling, just pressed as close as they can be, drinking each other in. At a certain point Karkat realises that all the heavy weight in his stomach is gone. He feels like he was never sad at all. It is that complete. He presses a kiss to her head and Jade looks up at him.  
He'll never forget the way she's looking at him, the way her glasses have slipped down her nose and she has curls sticking to her cheeks and her forehead. She leans in and gives him his kiss back, and the world seems to turn to gold.  
They break apart, and Jade tucks herself back into his arms.  
"I was really lonely," she says.  
"Me too. I made a list."  
"A list?"  
"Of ways to be lonely. It was extremely thorough and extensive."  
Jade laughs and then yawns.  
"Is it ok if I stay?"  
He rubs her hair.  
"What makes you think I'd let you go?”  
"Mmmm." She sighs, and there is silence for a while. He can hear her breathing getting slower and deeper, but just when he thinks she's asleep she speaks, her voice soft and mumbling. "You should make a new list."  
"Of what?"  
"Mmmm, I dunno. Ways to be happy maybe."  
She yawns again, and shifts slightly, and this time she really is asleep. Here, with him. If he made a list of ways to be happy, almost every item on it would be her.


End file.
